Rosalea Barker: Nascar on outriggers?

Nascar on outriggers?

Glad I’m not at the RNC in Dampa,
Florida. While they’re having ill winds and blowing no
good, over here in San Francisco, the wind is
welcome.

This week has been a taster for the big
America’s Cup hoopla coming up in September, 2013 in the
City by the Bay. Having written about Russell Coutts’
vision for a more exciting spectator experience when the cup
was shown off at SF City Hall back in 2010, I was curious to
see how that’s going. They certainly are getting plenty of
coverage on local TV, even on the channels that don’t have
the exclusive rights. ABC7’s weather forecast, for
example, begins with what kinds of winds will be out on the
Bay for the races in this week’s World Series.

Besides
getting plenty of airtime, the organizers have put In the
effort to make it easy for folks to go to the venue, with
MUNI staff selling return bus tickets right at the BART
stations close to where the 30L line goes by. And so it was
that I turned up at the St Francis Yacht Club (not the
holders of the Cup—the San Francisco Yacht Club has that
honor but their clubhouse is distant from the action) to see
just how many people would come out to watch what the
organizers call “stadium sailing”. It was a foggy, cold
afternoon—typical SF summer weather--but everyone seemed
to find some way to fend off the cold.

I caught my first
glimpse of Team Emirates through the guard rail of the yacht
club, as it jostled around before their semifinal match race
against Team Oracle/Spithill started. In case you’ve never
“been there, couldn’t leave”, and I hope you
haven’t, that’s Alcatraz in the background.

It’s about a
half-mile walk from the yacht club to the America’s Cup
village on Marina Green, and my ambling old lady gait
attracted the sympathy of Dale, the driver of one of the
courtesy golf carts the organizers have provided to move
people to and fro. (Does that qualify as gaiter-aid?)
Everyone on the shore team—many of them volunteers--was
really friendly and helpful, but I do declare that the
Smiling Face of the America’s Cup Award, must go to
Dale.

And so it was that I turned up at the St Francis Yacht Club (not the holders of the Cup—the Golden Gate Yacht Club has that honor) to see just how many people would come out to watch what the organizers call “stadium sailing”. Alas and alack!
As superstition would have it, I wasn’t wearing the lucky
Barker underwear, and my namesake was done out of a place in
Sunday’s match race final. Even the plastic walls of the
media tent seemed teary-eyed at the outcome as Emirates Team
New Zealand came back inshore to get ready for the team
racing that would take place a bit later.

Besides the media
filing center and network television areas, there is another
area that is for both the public and non-traditional media.
The Cup organizers are experimenting with distributing the
content created in the Digital Boatshed via YouTube,
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and
Google+. The DB also has an LCD “social broadcast set”
displaying live tweets and social feeds, along with race
content. A young Australian, Torvar Misky, acts as host
throughout the races, interviewing guests, moderating
offline and online conversation, and hosting video segments.
This weekend, “popular culture blogger” Beth Spotswood,
from SFGate is providing “her perspective on the lifestyle
side of the America’s Cup.”

Ahhh! The lifestyle
side of the America’s Cup. Sipping champers with your
sweater arms knotted loosely around your shoulders is what
instantly springs to mind. But with the on-course crashes
this week, Coutts vision of turning the sport into
Nascar-on-outriggers seems to be taking shape very nicely
thank you. Here’s a pic of a big screen view of Jimmy
Spithill’s appearance on the Marina Green stage after his
team also won today’s team races for the World Series
Championships.

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